Group locker control



April 17, 1934. E BALES 1,955,525

GROUP LOCKER CONTROL Filed Jan. 7, 1931 JvVE/vT LEMESEBILEJ By: @040 Jaw Patented Apr. 17, 1934 GROUP LOCKER CONTROL James E. Bales, Aurora, 111., assignor to Lyon Metal Products, Incorporated, Aurora, 111., a

corporation of Illinois Application January 7, 1931, Serial No. 507,083 5 Claims. (01. 292-33) My invention relates in general to lockers and has more particular reference to a plurality of locker compartments provided with gang locking means.

An important object of the invention is to provide simplified gang locking means for lockers.

Another important object is to provide a series of lockers each having an individual manually operable latch to control the opening and closing of the door and gang locking means independent of and controllable at a point remote from the latching means whereby the latching means of all lockers can be locked in door latching position or released for manual door opening operation.

Another important object of the invention is to provide a gang locking mechanism for lockers and the like wherein the locking mechanism may be secured in looking. position while any or all of the locker doors are open and whereby the open doors may then be closed and the latching mechanism thereof automatically locked in door latching position.

Still another important object is to provide a device of the class described having a minimum number of cheaply produced parts, a device in which the parts'are rugged and in which operation of the parts is simple yet positive.

A still further object of my present invention is to provide. a gang locking mechanism for a series of lockers of standard construction whereby gang operated lockers may be provided at minimum expense.

Yet another object of the invention is to provide multi-point latching means for each door of a series of lockers in combination with gang looking means for the entire series so that each door may be safely and securely latched at two or more remote points in the door and at the same time all lockers may be unlocked simultaneously.

A further object is to provide a system including a series of lockers having doors latchingly secured at a plurality of remote points and means whereby the system may be conditioned by a single operation to permit manual unlatching of any or all of the doors, said system being also conditionable, whether the doors are latched or not, to lock the latching mechanism in door latching position, so that any doors which may be open at the time will, upon being closed, be locked securely in closed position by the latch means at several remote points in the door member.

These and numerous other objects and advantages will be apparent as the invention is more ings.

fully understood from the foregoing description which, taken in connection with the accompanying drawing discloses a preferred form of the invention.

Referring to the drawing:

Figure 1 is a perspective view of a series of lockers having a locking system embodying my invention;

Figure 2 is a horizontal cross section taken substantially along the line 2-2 in Figure 1;

Figure 3 is a vertical cross section taken substantially along the line 33 in Figure 2; and

Figure 4 is a vertical cross section taken substantially along the line 44 in Figure 2.

To illustrate my invention, I haveshown on the drawing a series of lockers 11 which may be of any usual or preferred construction embodying separate compartments 13 defined between spaced walls 15 and provided with doors or other suitable closure means 17.

Each compartment 13 may, of course, be subdivided in any desired manneras for instance to form a two party locker or to form separate hat and coat compartments and the door 17 may be formed as a composite multi-part door or in any other convenient or preferred manner well known in the art.

The doors are mounted in openings preferably in the front wall of the lockers, the openings being defined by upright angle irons 19 arranged at the sides and horizontal angle irons 21 arranged at the top and bottom of the door open- Above the upper end of the door openings, the angle irons 19 are provided with perforations 23 through which a shaft 25 extends, the perforations forming a supporting journal in which 1 the shaft is rotatably guided. The shaft 25 preferably extends throughout the series of lockers and is housed behind the vertical arm of the angle irons 21 forming the top of the door openings. At one end, the shaft 25 carries a collar 27 with which is formed an outwardly extending arm 29. This member carries a link 31 pivotally mounted thereon to extend around and beneath the horizontal arm of the angle iron 21 forming the top of the door openings and out through a slot 33 formed in the front of one of the lockers. This forwardly extending portion-31 is provided with a handle 35 to facilitate manual manipulation of the part and also has a perforation 37 through which to arrange the bolt 39 of a padlock 41 which may be applied to the part when the same is projecting from the front of the construction to thereby prohibit the rearwardmotion of the part 31 through the slot 33. The link 31 also has a notch 42 in its lower edge just back of the handle 35 which notch is adapted to receive the lower edge of the slot 33 to secure the link in retracted position. The collar 27 is provided with a set screw 43 which may be adjusted to engage the shaft 25 in order to fix the collar 27 on the shaft 25. The member 31 is also provided with a shoulder 45 adapted to engage the angle iron adjacent to slot 33 to limit the forward motion of the part 31 through the slot.

It is obvious that when a lock has been applied to the forwardly projecting portion 31 as aforesaid that relative rotation of shaft 25 will be prevented. It is also apparent that by removing the lock and pressing the handle 35 the shaft 25 may be rotated in counter clockwise direction illustrated in Figure 3 of the drawing.

The doors 17 with which the lockers are provided may be of any suitable or preferred construction and are or may be liingedly connected along one vertical edge as by the hinges 47 from one of the vertical members 19 defining the door opening. The other edge of the door is adapted to swing opposite the other angle iron 19 defining the door opening and is provided preferably with an inwardly extending flange 49 along said free swinging edge.

The door carries a latch bar 51 shiftably mounted on the flange 49, the latch bar having a handle 53 extending forwardly through a slot 55 formed in the front of the door in order to permit the latch bar 51 to be manually operated from outside the door to release the door for opening movement. The latch bar 51 is also provided with one orv more latching members 57 comprising tongues extending inwardly of the latch bar in position to engage latch keepers 59 which are mounted on the upright angle iron 19.and extend inwardly thereof in position to encounter the latch members 5'7 when the door is arranged in' closed position in the door opening. .I prefer to form the latch bar of each door with at least three co-operating sets of latch members 57, one of these co-operating sets being arranged at the upper and lower extremities of the door and the other at substantially the middle of the latch bar so that a so called three-point latching may be provided to the end that each door may be firmly secured in closed position.

In order to apply my so called gang operation of the latching means, the shaft 25 is provided with a collar 61 mounted loosely for rotation on, the shaft. The shaft carries a collar 61 for each locker in the system. Each collar 61 is provided with a downwardly and forwardly projecting tongue 63 having an extremity 65 adapted to swing to a position immediately above the upper end of the latch bar 51 when the same is in closed position. The latch bar 51 is also provided with an outwardly extending lug or flange 67 at its upper end which flange is so arranged as to position itself immediately under the forwardly projecting end 65 of the tongue 63 so that when in closed position upward movement of the latch bar 51 is prevented by the presence of the projecting portion 65 immediately thereabove. Each of the collars 61 however is also provided with a lug or abutment 69 and the shaft 25 carries a collar 71 fixed for rotation with the shaft, said collar 71- having an abutment 73 adapted when the shaft and collar '71 are rotated in counter clockwise direction illustrated in Figure 3, to engage the lug 69 to rotate the collar 61 in such a way as to withdraw the forwardly projecting portion 65 from above the latch b reaches and receives the lower edge of the slot 33 to thereby secure the mechanism in door releasing position, all of the lockers will thus be conditioned for manual operation to unlatch the door. Spring means 77 is arranged between the collars 61 and 71, to normally and resiliently urge the collar 61 in a clockwise direction viewing Figure 3, that is to say, toward door latching position, or in other words to urge the lugs 69 and 73 into abutment. The lower edge of the locking tip 65 also is provided with a series of steps '79.

If any or all of the doors are unlatched and in open position and the gang locking system is arranged in locked-position any of the collars 61 on which the tongues 63 are formed may rotate on the shaft 25 against the tension of the springs '77 so that the abutment 69 moves away from the co-operating abutment 73 and thus will permit any of the doors to be closed and latched, since the door, in moving to closed position will force the stepped nose 65 of its locking tongue 63 rearwardly to permit the latching mechanism 57 to ride up and over the latchkeeper 59. When the latch bar is in latching position, the locking member 63 will be swung back into locking position with its nose above the flange 67 by the impulse of the spring 77. The springs 77 also hold the collars 61 and 71 together on the shaft so as to eliminate the necessity of spacing means which may of course also be provided if desired.

Obviously individual latch bar locking means may be supplied for each locker as is well known in the art.

From the foregoing description, it will be understood that I have provided a gang locking system for a plurality of lockers of such construction that the locking mechanism may simultaneously be arranged to permit unlatching and opening of the individual lockers and which locking mechanism may be secured in locking position while the doors of the individual lockers are open, and yet permit the open doors to be closed in the ordinary manner.

Another advantage of my present invention resides in the provision of a series of lockers each having means to latch the door at a plurality of spaced points and gang locking means controlled by a single control point whereby all the compartments may be securely locked.

It is thought that the invention and its numerous advantages will be understood from the foregoing description and it is obvious that numerous changes may be made in the form, construction, and arrangement of the several parts without departing from the spirit or scope of my invention or sacrificing any of its attendant ad-.

'ments, an individually and manually operated latching bar for each of the separate doors, and

a common control means for said latching bars comprising a rocker-shaft having means arranged to permit or prevent individual operation of said latching bars according to the setting of said rocker-shaft, an arm fastened to said rockershaft for varying the setting of the shaft, and

manually controlled means for tion of said arm.

2. A multiple locker construction comprising a cabinet having vertical partition walls dividing the cabinet into a pluralityof locker compartments, a rocker-shaft mounted in the upper part of said cabinet and extending through all of said compartments, means for operating said rocker-shaft, doors for the locker compartments, vertically shiftable individually and manually operated latching bars for said doors, and said shaft having arms for cooperating with said latching bars to render the latching bars individually operable or inoperable.

3. A cabinet construction forming a plurality of locker compartments, doors for said compartments, a latch bar for each door, a rocker shaft having locking means carried in position to cooperate with the latch bar of each door when closed to keep the bar in door-latching position, said locking means comprising hook-like arms carried on the shaft and extending in position to co-operatively engage each with a latch bar on a locker door in order to secure the latch bar in door-latching position when its corresponding door is closed, said locking means being rotatably mounted on the rocker shaft and spring-pressed toward bar-latching position, and means for turning the shaft to withdraw the hook-like arms from bar-latching position.

4. A cabinet construction forming a plurality preventing operaof locker compartments, doors for said compartments, a latch bar for each door, a rocker shaft having locking means carried in position to cooperate with the latch bar of each door when closed to keep the bar in door-latching position, each of said locking means being resiliently depressible on the shaft from normal bar-locking position to permit the locker door with which it is associated to close and the latch-bar to assume latching position, the locking means being adapted to return the bar to' latching position after being so depressed, and means to turn the rocker shaft to retract the locking means carried thereby from bar-locking position.

5. In a group locking system comprising means forming a plurality of openings, individual closure means for each opening, and independently operable latches for each of the closure means, the combination with each latch of locking means comprising members each positioned normally in the path of unlatching movement of one of the latches, each locking member being depressible by its corresponding latch as the closure means is moved to closed position in its corresponding opening to permit the latch to reach latching position, and releasing means co-operatively associated with each locking member and operable only fromla common remote control station to retract the locking members from latch-locking position.

JAMES E. BALES. 

